Corby clan's growing list of misadventures

Schapelle Corby with her mother, Rosleigh Rose, after her guilty
verdict.Photo: Reuters

SCHAPELLE Corby's half-brother James' court appearance on eight
drug, assault and housebreaking charges is the latest chapter in a
tumultuous family saga.

The Gold Coast clan was thrust rudely into the nation's
spotlight on October 8, 2004, when Bali police arrested Schapelle,
then 27, at Denpasar airport with 4.1 kilograms of marijuana in her
bag.

Corby's older brother Michael said in May last year that none of
the family had ever been involved in drugs, but this proved to be
untrue.

On May 20, 2005, Corby's father admitted that he was a similar
age to his daughter in the early 1970s when he was fined $400 for
possessing two grams of marijuana, which he said wasn't his. He
also admitted to "half a dozen" drink-driving charges, but said,
"who hasn't?"

It then emerged that in January 2002, Schapelle Corby's
half-brother, Clinton Rose, had been convicted in Queensland of
drug possession, and had done jail time for other crimes, including
burglary and motor vehicle offences. After Clinton pleaded guilty
to 62 burglary, stealing and motor vehicle offences committed over
six months, Southport District Court Judge Robert Hall said Rose's
"campaign of crime" had shown "a complete lack of respect for other
people's interests or for their property."

Rose was sentenced to three years' probation. But in August
2004, he was sentenced to 12 months' jail for breaching conditions
of his probation.

Corby's parents split up when she was a baby, and for the first
17 years of her life, she lived with her mother Rosleigh and
siblings Mercedes and Michael jnr, and later half-siblings Clinton,
James and Mele, at Logan City, halfway between Brisbane and the
Gold Coast.

Corby left school in Year 11, and worked at her mother's fish
and chip shop and at Coles, where she met a Japanese surfer, Kimi
Maekawa, whom she married in 1998 in the Japanese town of
Omaezaki.

But the marriage foundered and Corby returned to Australia. In
about 2003, she enrolled in a TAFE beauty course on the Gold Coast,
but quit to care for her father, who had prostate cancer. She
worked in her family's fish and chips shop to save for the Bali
trip.

Her younger half-brother James Kisina, then 16, was with Corby
when police found the marijuana in her boogie board bag, but she
has continued to deny the drugs were hers.

In mid-May last year, James told the Nine Network Corby was
innocent "because I saw her pack her bag".

Mr Kisina denied a suggestion that the marijuana was his drugs.
"I think it's one of the airport people," he said.

Eyebrows were raised last December when it was revealed that
police had seized photographs of Schapelle Corby with a man who was
later charged with marijuana smuggling. The photos were found when
police searched the alleged dealer's home in South Australia. He
was the target of a police investigation of a hydroponic marijuana
smuggling ring allegedly operating between SA and Queensland. The
family maintains that the photo was taken while Corby was in jail
in Bali.